Jake Ludington

Apple did many things right in their support for podcasting in iTunes. For instance, if you listen to a podcast in iTunes and then browse away to something else in iTunes, when you return, the podcast picks up where you left off. Configuration options for syncing podcasts with an iPod work well for managing large subscription lists. It’s easy to keep the latest episodes on your iPod, while leaving plenty of space for music. iTunes podcast support istn’t without a few flaws. Apple forgot to enable the ability to manage podcasts using Smart Playlists. There is a way to make them work.
Podcasts are listed in a special iTunes playlist, walled off from the general iTunes Library. This is similar to the way Audible subscriptions are presented in iTunes. Podcast audio files live in the Podcasts folder, which is inside the iTunes Music Folder. The general Library ignores the contents of the Podcasts folder by default. The only way to create a Smart Playlist of podcasts is to add them to your Library from File > Add Folder to Library or simply by dragging the folder (from Finder or Windows Explorer) into the Library.
Adding the Podcasts folder to your library catalogs everything in the folder with all of your music. It’s still neatly segregated in the purple Podcasts master playlist but now commingled with all your music. The upside to this is you now have full access to configuring a million ways to sort your podcasts. The downside is you have to sort around your podcast files when working with your songs.